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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25290859">(when you) come home to me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetricebuns/pseuds/sweetricebuns'>sweetricebuns</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Reunions, adam is hurting and has never stopped hurting. But It Gets Better :)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:40:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,584</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25290859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetricebuns/pseuds/sweetricebuns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a strange thing to grapple with loss, then to undo it as if it were never there.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adam &amp; Keith (Voltron), Adam/Shiro (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>110</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>(when you) come home to me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>adashi reunion fics will never get old! i have a lot of feelings about how much better adam deserved, and how much better shiro deserved, and how much better they deserved as a couple. i know its been years but this still haunts me man its crazy</p><p>unedited<br/>title from the last five years</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Adam is startled out of his reverie by Colleen’s hand sliding into his.</p><p>He glances at her, and sees the comforting expression she’s directing his way. Adam knows that she only means to soothe his nerves, but it doesn’t work. Still, he answers with a shaky smile of his own, and lets her hold his hand.</p><p>He doesn’t know whose hold is tighter—hers, or his.</p><p>This is something they share, Adam thinks. This profound sense of loss, that isn’t quite loss. They have always shared it.</p><p>A series of memories flash in his mind.</p><p>First, the day they had gotten word of the Kerberos mission. If he closes his eyes, it only takes him seconds to reconstruct the memory vividly: the stifling silence of the room against the hum of the AC unit and its dreary, barren cream walls. Colleen sat beside him, while Admiral Sanda stood opposite them, expression somber. Colleen was holding his hand then, too.</p><p>Next, Keith’s disappearance. Only, it wasn’t just Keith, was it? It was Lance, Hunk, and Pidge, too—his students, kids, <i>Colleen’s</i> kid. But it was also <i>Keith</i>, and all he meant, and he had only just managed to put himself back together after Kerberos.</p><p>That day, he found himself on the Holts’ doorstep. He had barely knocked twice when the door swung open so fast that he took a step back. The shock bled out of his system when he took in the expression on Colleen’s face, desperate hope melting into devastation.</p><p>He had hoped they were done with the grief.</p><p>Then, Sam’s return. The uproar around his sudden appearance. The noise in the Garrison. Colleen’s invitation, voice breathless even through the phone. Sam, alive, breathing in the Holts’ living room. He remembers <i>Hello, Adam</i> and <i>They’re alive</i>, the softness of the carpet underneath him as he fell to his knees, and Colleen’s warm embrace.</p><p>It is a strange thing to grapple with loss, then to undo it as if it were never there.</p><p>He hears Colleen’s sharp inhale, the way her grip on his hand tightens just that little bit more. There’s a vehicle in the distance, a dot set against the clear desert horizon. He knows, with absolute certainty, that it’s them.</p><p>Sam steps up beside Colleen, and despite his easy nature, Adam can feel him crackling with tension. He gets it. It’s one thing to believe your child is coming back, it’s another to know it.</p><p>“Go easy on Katie,” Sam says.</p><p>Colleen laughs, and it eases some of the tightness in Adam’s chest. “I just want to hold her. Everything else can follow later.” If her voice sounds watery, neither Sam nor Adam point it out.</p><p>It’s getting closer and closer now. Adam finds it increasingly difficult to breathe with every inhale and exhale. Colleen still hasn’t let go of his hand.</p><p>“Adam,” Sam says.</p><p>Adam hums in lieu of an actual response. He couldn’t speak even if he tried.</p><p>He expects a light quip, or a fatherly aphorism as Sam is so wont to dole out. Instead, he gets Sam’s steady presence on his other side, and a grounding hand on his shoulder.</p><p>Here Adam stands, between Colleen and Sam as they hold him. It feels rather like they’re keeping him from falling apart. It is comfort he is grateful for.</p><p>“I’m going to kill them,” says Adam, trying for humor. It’s an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, and thankfully, Colleen and Sam respond in kind. The vehicle is significantly closer now, close enough that he can hear the roar of its engine, and his heart beats painfully in his chest.</p><p>“Yes, well, I doubt it’s any less than they deserve.”</p><p>Adam laughs at that, but his eyes burn. It takes a monumental effort to stifle the tears that threaten to spill. What does it mean to deserve anything, anyway?</p><p>Before he knows it, the vehicle is parked only meters away from them.</p><p>“Go,” Adam whispers, taking his hand out of Colleen’s. “Pidge is waiting for you.” She looks at him, conflicted, and Adam’s heart clenches. Even faced with the opportunity to finally reunite with the daughter she thought she had lost for well over five years, Colleen still finds it in herself to care for him. Still, his gaze is unwavering, and Colleen must be convinced by what she sees because she nods.</p><p>“Easy, son.” Sam squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. Adam must look like he’s about to fall over, then.</p><p>“I’ll try,” Adam replies. “Now go, the both of you.” He shoos them away, making wide sweeping gestures with his hands.</p><p>Finally, they leave him be. He watches as they walk hand in hand towards the vehicle, picking up pace when Pidge stumbles out of the vehicle. Adam averts his gaze. This is their moment.</p><p>And that’s when his eyes meet Takashi’s.</p><p>The nerves return and hit him like a freight train.</p><p>He’s there. It’s <i>Takashi</i>.</p><p>Since Sam’s return, since <i>They’re alive</i>, there hasn’t been a day when Adam hasn’t thought about Takashi. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s never really stopped.</p><p>He hasn’t seen Keith yet, and he knows he must be nearby, but he can’t take his eyes off of Takashi. And Takashi, <i>oh</i>, <i>his Takashi</i> watches him the way he’s always watched Adam: like he’s the only thing that exists, that means anything in this world.</p><p>It’s been so long, and the maelstrom of feelings in Adam’s chest becomes thunderous, wreaking havoc through every part of his being.</p><p>Adam thinks about <i>How important am I to you</i> and <i>Don’t expect me to be here when you get back</i> and feels shame overwhelm him like a tidal wave. What was he even doing here? How had he even thought he was welcome?</p><p>Loss throbs in his chest, down to and through his fingertips. That Takashi is back and safe does nothing to relieve it—if anything, he feels the sharp pang of loss intensify so painfully that he might pass out.</p><p>He knows he should leave. He never should have come in the first place, he thinks. But his feet stay rooted to its spot, and he curses himself from the recesses of his mind.</p><p>Suddenly, he hears, faintly, “Is that Adam?”</p><p>His breath hitches. It’s Keith, beside Takashi, and the sight makes his eyes burn a fierce thing. Oh, <i>Keith</i>.</p><p>He never even got to say goodbye before Keith disappeared. This is a wound that hurts differently altogether.</p><p>Adam watches as Keith gestures to him, heated in the way he’s always been since he was but a kid burrowed between him and Takashi underneath their blankets. It takes him a little bit to realize that they’re likely talking about him, but when he does, it’s when Keith stops to stare at him forlornly.</p><p>Adam’s heart hurts. Had he put that expression there?</p><p>Then, Keith’s expression morphs into something more determined, and Adam can only stare in bewilderment as Keith takes Shiro by the shoulders and effectively <i>pushes</i> him from behind. In Adam’s direction.</p><p>Adam feels a little light-headed, his breath coming in dizzyingly short bouts. Still, he tries to take a fortifying breath to settle himself.</p><p>He blinks, and suddenly, they’re right in front of him. Takashi and Keith. His boys, who he thought he lost forever.</p><p>Adam’s sure he’s stopped breathing altogether.</p><p>“Hi, Adam,” Keith greets, and it’s a little aggressive. He winces, clearly not meaning for it to come out that way, but the determined expression never leaves his face.</p><p>“Hello,” Adam breathes. It’s all he can say.</p><p>Keith never wavers, ever earnest in that sweet way Adam remembers. He’s taller now, his shoulders broad and tense, and he’s got a mark on his cheek that he’s sure wasn’t there when Keith disappeared, and grief shoots through Adam like an arrow. He thinks about what Keith has seen out there, what war, what violence, and his heart breaks for this kid, <i>his</i> kid.</p><p>And then, “Hey, Adam.”</p><p>He sways forward without meaning to, like responding to a beckoning call. It’s embarrassing, the way Adam is helpless to the way Takashi’s voice draws him in, after all this time.</p><p>He knows he should be cataloguing all that’s changed in Takashi. A distant part of himself registers the missing arm, the white hair, the scar on his nose, but he can’t bring himself to think past the relief of being in Takashi’s warmth, in his presence all over again. Takashi carries himself like he always does—like he carried the weight of the world on his two human shoulders.</p><p>“God,” Adam can’t help but say, “Takashi.”</p><p>Takashi stares at him, eyes moving all over Adam frantically, like he’s desperate to commit the image of Adam to memory. As if this moment is ephemeral, a momentary glitch, a reward he won’t get to keep. It makes Adam want to laugh. If he had half a mind, he would be doing the same thing.</p><p>He can’t, though. He’s too focused on the fact that Takashi and Keith are right there, in front of him, alive and breathing. He doesn’t want to think about them disappearing, not when he’d only just gotten them back.</p><p>“My boys,” Adam whispers. It sounds a bit like a prayer. Their faces crumple a little, expressions vulnerable in that way that’s always been reserved just for him, and Adam can’t take it anymore. His voice cracks when he pulls them in and repeats, “<i>My boys</i>.”</p><p>They tumble into his arms, and he cries.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>anyway you can pry the friendship between adam and colleen from my cold dead hands</p><p>talk to me on <a href="https://laurentism.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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